1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for detecting a radiation source and a method of detecting a radiation source using the same and, more particularly, to an apparatus for detecting a radiation source, which is capable of rapidly obtaining information about the distance to a radiation source by using a simple construction including a position tracking unit and movement means, and a method of detecting a radiation source using the apparatus.
2. Background of the Related Art
The Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, occurred in Chernobyl of Ukraine in 1986, caused loss of numerous people and an environmental disaster, and a serious influence thereof continues. If a countermeasure technique had been developed and a countermeasure scenario had been prepared when the exposure accident of radioactivity and a state of emergency of radiation occurred before the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident, damage and influence due to the accident might have been minimized.
There is much research carried out in order to develop techniques and apparatuses for dealing with a future radioactivity emergency accident in Russia, U.S.A, Japan, etc. after the Chernobyl Nuclear Accident. Active research is being carried out in order to develop various robot systems for dealing with an emergency. The robot system for dealing with an emergency must be thrown into a radioactivity accident environment on which known information does not exist in order to detect radiation material in the unknown environment, so that the robot system can provide information for establishing a countermeasure plane for a state of emergency and efficiently processing radioactivity contaminants in an accident site. To this end, it is necessary to develop a technique and an apparatus which can rapidly detect the position of a radiation source having a high level within an accident environment.
A variety of apparatuses for detecting the position of a radiation source have been developed at home and abroad so far. Most of the apparatuses, however, provides only two dimensional (2-D) direction information about the position of a radiation source and also has disadvantages in that it is difficult to attach a movable robot owing to heavy weight and the radiation source detection speed is slow.
More particularly, as a conventional method using a gamma camera, there is a method of detecting the direction of a radiation source using a single CCD camera. If this method is used, the direction of the radiation source may be detected, but information about the distance to the radiation source is not provided. Accordingly, there are problems in that an accurate dose of a radiation source cannot be measured and an accurate position of a radiation source cannot be detected in a complicate environment.
Consequently, there are difficulties in obtaining information about an accurate direction and distance of a radiation source. If a Charge Coupled Device (CCD) camera is used in order to obtain the distance information, there are problems in that an image processing step becomes complicate, an apparatus becomes bulky, and the cost and the measurement time are increased. Accordingly, there is a need for a detection apparatus and method capable of accurately obtaining information about the direction and distance of a radiation source more rapidly using simple equipment.